IEATTHEHOMELESS
by ultiblade
Summary: short story inspired from a couple horror comic books, a murderer kills homeless people and a writer is the only person after him.


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Part 1 Hell

Sweat drips from his brow in to the maggot filled carpet and slimes its way to the concrete floor, the heat unbearable in the darkness of the basement in this decrepit and destroyed home. Carnage strewn across the floor in some bizarre ritual attempted by the man eater, the smell boiled into the nostrils with wrath and gluttony and the stomach of even the most hardened of warriors would wretch in this hell of a space. The writer gasped for breath in the murk only to find himself on the verge of vomiting across this section of hell found exclusively in the basement of a graffiti encrusted home in Sothern Idaho. The writer managed to keep his breakfast intact, if just barely, as he crumpled to the floor. He had never expected his little adventure to turn out like this; he never thought he would find himself staring into a wandering bit of hell. He never thought he was strong enough to be the hero, he thought he was the brave knight in this tale who would slay the evil in the countryside. He thought that would be what would take his career into the realm of legitimacy. He hoped that he could end up one of the big one; he knew that this would be his big break. The writer had never conceived that he would be standing in front of the pits of hell devoid of a devil, a devil that was most likely out on the hunt and coming back any second.

Before he could run, before he could escape hells first gate, he was paralyzed. Fear gripped him harder than any pressure know to humanity and held him still as his gaze was caught upon a demons back. His breakfast nearly spilled over his lips again as he gazed at the naked back of a large frames man hunched over amid the gore and entrails. The black hair dripped with sweat and he muddled in the remains of what might have once been a person. The demon worked silently at his task as the writer tried to break his bonds of fear. He knew this would be his last moments if he did not escape now. But no amount of coercion, no amount of willpower could break him out of the total paralysis that his fear left him in. He found that he could not move even as he watched the demon lift a large bone above his head, still hunched over his prey. The demon without looking sent the bone crashing into an overhead pipe. The plumbing cried with a metallic howl across the building, the demon did not move from the sound, not pleasure nor pain could be seen from the nude body sitting not twenty feet from the writer.

The demon wracked the pipe again with the bone. The house wailed again in agony the demon still sat motionless in the symphony of screaming pipes. The writer cowered trying desperately to move, to turn, to do anything to get away from this house screaming in pain. All he managed to do was send a trail of urine down his leg. Repulsively warm it ran onto the rancid carpet at his feet, the writer had always thought the notion of peeing yourself was not true he thought that it was a joke and would never happen in real life and today he found out he was wrong. The demon took a final crack at the pipe, a final wail carried across the house and a sharp crack as the bone splintered. The sting of the urine's acid set into the writers flesh and began to cool snapped the writer out of his fears trance and adrenalin flooded into his system. The last second before the writer bolted into the night he managed to glimpse the demon snapping the bone in half and pulling out a thick finger full of marrow that he shoved into his gullet.

The first step of the writers escape landed on the rotting floor of the building. A dull thud rose up around the dusty retches of this forgotten home. The writer heard the thud and knew that it would be the same sound that his body would make if the demon managed to catch him. The second footstep was just as loud, only tenths of a second behind the first. The third followed the same. Later the writer would have described the steps as a drum beat on great war drums chasing him down those dark halls. It was a mere seven seconds before the writer was out of that house, but the second he stepped foot outside he felt he had escaped hell, he had lived. Then the house screamed.

The scream came from the pipes again, the wail of the damned running through them and into the night air. Again three more taps, quicker this time, running into the cold September night. The writer now recognized the sound as what it truly was. These were the bells of hell chiming in their satanic announcement of a demon's mass, crying through the night. He also knew that after the third ring the chase would begin. He knew he would be chased down and slaughtered that night if he didn't escape. So the writer ran away from what he had seen hoping to see the mornings light once more. His dreams of the glory of catching a killer left behind him at the steps of hell. He was across the yard when nude man walked through the front door and he was at his car when the demon stepped out of the yard. The writer managed to open his door when the bone cracked across his temple. One, two, three times the bone was rammed into the writers flesh. Breaking ribs and snapping a kneecap out of place. The writer's body shattered to the ground and the demon took hold of his remaining leg and began dragging the screaming man into the depths of hell.

It took two minutes to drag the body into the basement. Those two minutes were an eternity for the writer. For the first minute the writer relived the last two days in vivid detail. The second minute he saw the open door to the basement gaping, darkness flowing out of it like fire coming from a dragon's maw.

Part 2 the first minute

The writer woke up in his apartment the first day, a tiny one bed room on the third floor. He lurched out of bed like a zombie from a grave and stumbled to the front door, the haze of the morning still flooding his mind. The door opened with a creak and he picked up the newspaper for "inspiration". Our writer will be known as Penn Giles, his pen name, and he holds himself to be a macabre mystery writer. Every morning he sits down with a cup of discount coffee and a neighbor's paper to try and inspire the story that will bring him to the stardom he thinks he deserves. Through high school he knew he was special, he would easily crank out papers twice their required length and never get a bad comment. He tried higher education for a while but flunked out quickly. He still had high remarks on his papers but the standardized testing killed his average. So he took a job at a local convenience store that would let him take the expired food and paid enough to pay his bills and he began writing as much as he could.

He would send his work into publishing houses and agents but would never get a good response back. Some would call him unoriginal, most would tell him to get better known. That's where his idea came from, he would read the paper and write fiction inspired by what he would find happening in real life and eventually he would get one event that people would pick up on and find him as the first person writing about these events. Penn though it was a fool proof idea and he would be the next big mystery writer in history, best seller after best seller he would write and become a household name, simple plan. So with stars in his eyes our writer would sit down and find one or two events to twine into his web of stories. He would write them out daily and post them into the virtual world to be discovered. With hopes his goal would be achieved. He still had only a few glances at his work, his top story still not breaking two hundred reads, but it was a start.

This morning had a gem, a small story titled "Drifters remains found at bus stop". The story was short with few details but the writer chose it for the gore and that there was not suspects. Quickly into his own reenactment he began finding holes in his own logic, the story crumbling apart in his fingers the details from the story would not fit with any character he made. He had become obsessed with this story. He needed to find out more so he create his masterpiece. Penn quickly found himself at the newspapers offices, looking for more details. Somehow he managed to drag out the bus stop where it happened and the investigators name. He had began his own adventure, he was going to figure out this story. The bus stop was already cleaned when he got there, no fingernails, no teeth, no clues.

The investigator was useless as well, he wouldn't give out details of an open case only that there was nothing useful at the scene, the writer was quickly turned away being told that it was just a homeless man. This infuriated the writer, that man had a story to tell and he was just clumped away as some street bum that got killed. So Penn went the only way he could, he staked out the bus stop and questioned the homeless people around the area. Eventually he got his "back story". His victim was known as old Nick, lost his job ten years ago and drank away his savings eventually had to start begging for food and some of the locals would give him little jobs to help him out. The night he died he was being followed around by some guy, the others stayed away looked like a drug deal they wanted no part of, morning came around they found him on the bus stop. He looked like he was just sleeping when they tried to wake him up he had an arm missing and his chest carved open and everything taken out.

No organs and missing an arm the cops identified him off his buddies and took off with the body. That's it no follow up, no trying to find the killer, nothing. Homeless guy is brutally murdered and no one cares, just fills out their reports and walk away. Next day Penn goes out and talks with the same people, two more dead guys missing and one other body found. No one knew the other guy, there was no head. Cops once again clean up and clear out. Penn's obsession takes over and asks around about the murderer. Second night they saw where he went, out of town deep into middle of nowhere they say he was headed. So Penn takes off in his tiny junker to look into where he might have gone.

There are parts of Idaho littered with old abandoned settler buildings, some have been restored and some have been taken down for fields and farms. This chunk though was abandoned because the land is barren, no crops can grow and the grass is too weak for livestock. There are random house's spotting the landscape, one fifty years newer than the rest. It was the site of a stubborn farmer who failed at using the land. Legend goes he killed himself ten years ago when he knew he had failed. This is the local ghost story; Penn has been here once before when he and a few friends went out to see it one boring weekend. He stops at all the shacks along the way but finds nothing till he reaches here. Soon as he gets out of his car he sees a wet spot and trail like something was dragged to the front door. He follows thinking nothing but that he hit jackpot. Penn walks into the front door thinking about his stardom in the papers, listing off headlines in his mind, "Writer finds butcher", and "the dead men have their tale" for his book announcement. He was going to be the next big thing, he tells himself as he tiptoes around the empty building. The sun was setting when he arrived, after an hour Penn has searched all the rooms but the basement, skipping over the door multiple times. He eventually spots it as he is ready to leave for home to get a flashlight. His last door looms in front of him as his mind finally drifts from his stardom and onto his fascination of the door that he had not noticed.

The door is tucked into a back corner of the room hidden in the shadows, the moon reflecting off the barest edge of the frame. The writer touches the door in curiosity; it swings inward without a sound on freshly oiled hinges. Steps appear leading down into an abyss of black. The smell is what assaults Penn first, burning hair, sweat and a stiff iron musk. His mind begins going over the situation again and as his eyes adjust to the dark he realizes how stupid he has been. He is unarmed, no one knows where he is, he doesn't even have light with him and he is chasing after a murderer. This isn't one of his stories, he could really die here. When his realization peaks his eyes reveal the horrors that awaited him in that room, dimly illuminated by a furnace burning hot in the night on what must have been burning flesh. The writer snaps back to life when the door appears again in his vision. His ankle wrenched in the grip of a naked hulk of a man. He is being dragged into hell, his story never told and the killer will continue.

He reaches the lips of the portal to the darkness and fumbles with the carpet, it tears in his grasp repeatedly. Penn realizes he is crying, sobbing really and desperately grasping for something to stop his decent into hell. The demon never stops the tearing carpet and dragging the writer seeming effortless. His frame vanishes into the darkness. Penn only has time for one last clutch before he is engulfed in the darkness and his fate is sealed. He clutches the door frame and it breaks off in his hands. Splinters dig deep into his flesh as a large hunk of rotted wood tears away from the doomed house and spills the first blood from the soon to be corpse.

Penn flails away in the darkness with the piece of wood hoping to hit the target, he connects once and is dragged screaming into the basement as the demon misses his step in surprise. The fall knocks the writer out cold; the house is silent for a while. Then a single scream is heard echoing around the land. Then the demonic mass rings again. One, two, three times and the world falls silent again for the night.


End file.
